ABC---Anything
But Catholicism

by
Thomas A. Droleskey

There comes
a time when stating the obvious becomes obviously tedious (or should
that be tediously obvious?). After all, what more can be said in the
face of continued assaults against the Faith of our fathers by bishops
or priests or "professionals" in the bureaucracies of Catholic
educational institutions or hospitals or charitable organizations? It's
all been said so many times by so many people. I find myself repeating
themes I have explored years ago. At what point do we say that we have
said all that can be said and concentrate on the interior life of the
soul and on fulfilling the obligations of our state-in-life without
badgering people with obvious comments about obvious problems?

It is with this in mind that I offer just a few reflections on the impending
sacrilege that will take place in the Basilica of Saint Joseph’s
Oratory in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, this coming Saturday, August 14,
2004, which is the Vigil of the Assumption in the calendar of Tradition.
Following the two papal events at Assisi, endless papal meetings with
leaders of false religions and/or heretical, schismatic Christian sects,
affronts committed against the Deposit of Faith by bishops and pastors
of parishes in “ecumenical” prayer outings, the abomination
that took place on May 5, 2004, in the Chapel of the Apparitions in
the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in Fatima, Portugal (when Hindu “priests”
put a Hindu prayer shawl on the rector of the shrine before they desecrated
the shrine by offering prayers to their false gods), and countless other
events, especially those that took place in this country in the aftermath
of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, we should not be surprised
by this impending outrage. Saddened and sickened, yes. Surprised, no.
One of the saddest commentaries of the regime of novelty of the past
forty to forty-six years is that it has become fairly standard to expect
offenses sanctioned by our shepherds that go to the very heart of the
Revelation the God-Man, Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, entrusted
to His true Church.

Several articles on this site have addressed the religious indifferentism
that is at the essence of the syncretism that passes for “ecumenism.”
Among these are “No Other Name by Which Men Can be Saved”
and two articles in May dealing with the desecration of the Chapel of
the Apparitions in Fatima. An article of mine in the November 30 issue
of The Remnant, “Making Room for Baal and His Friends,”
dealt with plans to turn the Fatima shrine into a center for “inter-religious”
dialogue and worship. After all, wasn’t Our Lady’s Fatima
message all about ecumenism? (For those who are in doubt, the answer
to that question is no.) Thus, there is no real need to offer extensive
commentary on the newest outrage. It’s all been said scores of
times before by so many people.

The best place to go, though, for a thorough refutation of the errors
of ecumenism is to the Pope himself. Well, to be a little more precise,
you see, I am referring to Pope Pius XI. Read Mortalium Animos,
issued on January 6, 1928, and you will see a ringing condemnation of
all forms of syncretism and inter-religious worship. Another encyclical
that condemns religious indifferentism as one of the many aspects of
Modernism is Pope Saint Pius X’s Pascendi Domenici Gregis,
which was issued on September 8, 1907. The Popes of tradition have said
it all. They are the ones who point firm, unbending fingers of condemnation
at the popes of the conciliarist era to mislead Catholics and non-Catholics
alike by their words and actions that give the appearance of endorsing
the heretical–and specifically condemned--notion of universal
salvation.

We must offer our prayers in reparation for what will
take place on Saturday, August 14, 2004, when, as a news flash put out
by Father Nicholas Gruner’s Fatima Center, states:

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, who is the "founder of the Art of Living
Foundation, a United Nations - non-governmental organization" is
scheduled to speak, teach and/or do meditation in the Basilica (we found
this out by calling the number on a flyer).!

We were unable to find this information on the web site of St. Joseph's
Oratory. The word was spread by means of flyers and on the web site
of Mr. Shankar's 'foundation'.

Flyers were distributed in the Montreal area that refer to this man
as "his holiness"!. On the flyer it also says Mr. Shankar
is "...the founder of The Art of Living Course, which 'may be the
fastest-growing spiritual practice on the planet' (Yoga Journal)".
Need we say more?

Worse - people are actually paying money to hear him speak at this place
of Catholic Worship.

The phone, fax and e-mail numbers provided by the Fatima Center news
flash will be appended at the end of this brief reflection. Although
one can remain hopeful that our prayers to prevent this outrage from
occurring will be answered, the history of the regime of novelty suggests
that the event will go on as scheduled. After all, the Congregation
of the Holy Cross, which runs Saint Joseph’s Oratory, is the same
congregation that runs the University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Indiana,
at which a celebration of perversity took place on February 14, 2004,
exactly six months before Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (I mean, I heard of the
late Albert Shanker, the long-time president of the New York City teacher’s
union, but Sri Sri Ravi Shankar?) will give his day of “meditation”
in a shrine dedicated to the foster-father of the Second Person of the
Blessed Trinity made Man and the chaste spouse of the Blessed Virgin
Mary, the Mother of God. The Congregation of the Holy Cross welcomed
the sodomites onto Our Lady’s campus in Indiana six months ago;
they will welcome Sri Sri Ravi Shankar without hesitation.

Barring the miracle for which we pray, Rome will not intervene. Rome
never intervenes in these matters. How can it? The Pope has participated
in ecumenical outrages. Cardinals participate in them all the time.

The appearance of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar at Saint Joseph’s Oratory
calls to mind an event that took place was just about ten years ago
in Oyster Bay, New York. The [now] former pastor of Saint Dominic’s
Church there, Monsignor Charles H. “Bud” Ribaudo, sponsored
a day of “spirituality” in his parish that featured one
New Age speaker after another. Ribaudo, who was removed as pastor in
2002 as a result of molestation allegations made by a priest, Father
Michael Hinds (who became a molester himself), advertised himself in
the flyer promoting the conference as a graduate of “est, Silva
Mind Control, and Ira Progoff’s Intensive Journal Workshops.”
In other words, Monsignor Bud Ribaudo was a practitioner of various
“meditation” programs that were at odds with the entire
patrimony of Divine Revelation and actually are tools of the devil to
empty one’s mind so as to be open to one’s “inner
self.” This prompted me to write a piece, “This Bud’s
Not for You,” that was meant to get the attention of Roman authorities.
Nothing happened. The then ordinary, the late Bishop John Raymond McGann,
did nothing. Rome did nothing. In fact, Ribaudo would not have been
removed as pastor in 2002 by Bishop William Murphy had it not been for
the bad press generated by the allegations made by Father Hinds, something
that Monsignor Frank Caldwell, then the director of priest personnel
for the diocese, admitted before a grand jury in Suffolk County, New
York. Bad press got rid of Monsignor Bud Ribaudo. The fact that he believed
in New Age “spirituality” programs mattered not one little
bit to Bishops John R. McGann or William Murphy.

Let’s be plain about this: there is only one winner when those
representing false religions appear in Catholic churches, no less shrines
dedicated to Our Lady or her most chaste spouse, Saint Joseph, the Patron
of the Universal Church. The devil is the only winner when blasphemous,
sacrilegious prayers are offered up in a Catholic church. The devil
is the winner when a Catholic priest, dressed in full Aztec regalia,
used a pagan ritual to “bless” the four winds, as happened
in the Serra Chapel of Mission San Juan Capistrano in California a few
years ago. The devil is the winner when the Vicar of Christ praises
the voodoo witch doctor for his “contributions” to tribal
life. The devil is the winner when the Pope lets the Archbishop of Canterbury,
who is a layman without valid orders (unless he’s paid some money
to an Old Catholic bishop to get himself ordained, something that seems
to be in vogue in some traditional Catholic circles these days), give
a “blessing” with him. The devil is the winner when Bishop
Joseph Fiorenza of the Diocese of Galveston-Houston suspends a devoted
son of Our Lady, Father Stephen Zigrang, for associating with the Society
of Saint Pius X, a “schismatic” group that rejects ecumenism
and the “enduring validity Old Covenant God made with the people
of Israel.” The devil is the winner when any Catholic, no less
a pope or a cardinal or other bishop or a priest, conveys the notion,
whether by words or actions, that one can be saved by any religion other
than Catholicism.

The errors of Russia are the errors of modernity. The errors of modernity
are crystallized in Modernism, which has infected the highest quarters
of the Church. Continued assaults against the First and Second Commandments
in Catholic churches and under the official color of the Church herself
lead inexorably to ecclesiastical and social chaos. The father of all
chaos is the devil. And devil wants all men to believe in ABC–Anything
But Catholicism.

There is thus only one antidote to this: for some pope to actually consecrate
Russia to Our Lady’s Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. Until this
happens, our situation is going to get worse and worse and worse.

Our Lady, Queen assumed into Heaven, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, Patron of the Universal Church, pray for us.

Saint Philomena, whose feast day is August 11, pray for us.

Saint Maximilian Kolbe, on whose auxiliary feast* the outrage in Saint
Joseph’s Oratory will occur, pray for us to be totally consecrated
to Our Lady’s Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart so that we will build
up the City of Mary Immaculate.

Saint Joachim, father of the Mother of God, whose feast is on August
16, pray that the shrine dedicated to your just and holy son-in-law,
Saint Joseph, will be preserved from this scandalous outrage.

Saint Francis Xavier, who preached to the people of the East, pray for
the conversion of all those trapped in the idolatries of false religions
and the various manifestations of the New Age movement.
______________________________________________________________________________
*Although the feast of Saint Maximilian Kolbe is not in the calendar
of Tradition, it can be commemorated in a secondary collect, secret
and postcommunion in Masses on August 14. As Father Patrick Perez explained
on the Feast of Saint Juan Diego, December 9, 2003, the more recently
canonized saints may be commemorated in a secondary manner as just described.
Saint Maximilian Kolbe, although disparaged by some traditional Catholics,
was imprisoned in Auschwitz by the Nazis precisely because of his fearless
work against all false ideologies, including Nazism (as well as Freemasonry,
Zionism, Communism). Saint Maximilian Kolbe was devoted to the Triumph
of Mary Immaculate. It is certainly just to invoke his intercession
to prevent the pending outrage in Montreal and to make reparation for
it if it takes place.

Keep praying Rosaries to prevent this sacrilege and to make reparation
for it in the event it does take place as scheduled. Remember, the example
of Father McMahon and the courageous Catholics who prayed the Rosary
in Grand Rapids, Michigan six months ago. There is no reason why this
courage cannot be exhibited on August 14, 2004, at Saint Joseph's Oratory
in Montreal.